Jeffrey Dahmer biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 21, 1960, into the loving household of Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. He wanted for nothing in his formative years, and was a happy child until the age of 6, when a minor surgery to correct a double hernia seemed to effect a change on the boy. Following Dahmer's surgery, which coincided with the birth of his brother, he became increasingly insular and lacking in self confidence.

A career opportunity for his father, around the same time, resulted in the family moving from Iowa to Ohio, and the boy's insecurities deepened. By his early teens, he was disengaged, tense and largely friendless.

Dahmer claims that his compulsions to necrophilia and murder began at the age of 14, but it appears that the breakdown of his parents' marriage, their acrimonious divorce and the psychological stresses associated with these events may have been the catalyst for turning these earlier thoughts into actions.

First Victims

Just after he graduated from high school, in June 1978, Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks and took him home to his parents' house, where they drank beer and had sex. When Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer killed him with a blow to the head with a barbell. He dismembered the corpse of his first victim, packed the body parts in plastic bags and buried them in the woods behind his parents' house. It would be another nine years before he encountered his second victim.

Around the same time of his first killing, Dahmer's alcohol consumption had spun out of control. In January 1979, after only one term at The Ohio State University, Dahmer dropped out of school due to his drinking problem. His recently remarried father insisted that he enlist in the Army, and Dahmer was posted to Germany.

Dahmer's drinking problem persisted, however, and two years later, the Army discharged him for alcoholism. It is not believed that he took any more victims while serving in the Armed Forces, and he returned home to Ohio following his discharge, where he exhumed Hicks's remains, pulverized them with a hammer, and scattered the pieces even more widely in the woods.

An arrest in October 1981 for disorderly conduct prompted his father to send Dahmer to live with his grandmother in Wisconsin, but the alcohol problems persisted. His next arrest occurred years later, in September 1986: Dahmer was arrested for masturbating in front of two young boys, and received a one-year probationary sentence.

In September 1987, Dahmer took his second victim, Steven Toumi, whom he met in a gay bar. They checked into a hotel room and drank heavily, and by the following morning, Toumi was dead.